Identification products such as smart cards and RFID (“Radio Frequency Identification”) tags (hereinafter referred to as “transponder”) are widely used in the field of transport (ticketing, road tolling, baggage tagging), finance (debit and credit cards, electronic purse, merchant card), communication (SIM cards for GSM phones), and tracking (access control, inventory management, asset tracking). International standard ISO14443A is an industry standard for contactless smart cards. ISO14443A-compliant products such as MIFARE™ provide RF communication technology for transmitting data between a card or a tag and a reader device (hereinafter referred to as “transceiver”). For example, in electronic ticketing for public transport, travelers just wave their card over a reader at the turnstiles or entry point, benefiting from improved convenience and speed in the ticketing process. Such products are set to be the key to individual mobility in the future, supporting multiple applications including road tolling, airline tickets, access control and many more.
Evolving from a combination of contactless identification and networking technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC) is a very short-range wireless technology for distances measured in centimeters, and is optimized for intuitive, easy and secure communication between various devices without user configuration. In order to make two devices communicate, users bring them close together or even make them touch each other. The NFC interfaces of these devices will automatically connect and configure themselves to form a peer-to-peer network. NFC can also bootstrap other protocols like Bluetooth™ or Wireless Ethernet (WiFi) by exchanging the configuration and session data. NFC is compatible with contactless smart card platforms. This enables NFC devices to read information from these cards, making contactless smart cards the ideal solution for bringing information and vouchers into the NFC world. NFC interfaces are nowadays widely used in mobile phones and other mobile devices.
For example, “smart posters” are known as arbitrary or advertising poster placards, which are equipped with a transponder, such as a passive RFID tag. The data stored on the transponder can be read by using a transceiver, which may be embodied as a traditional smart card reader/writer or as an NFC-enabled mobile device such as a mobile phone.
The data may be stored directly on the transponder or—in a typical smart poster application—the “data” are stored in the form of a URL (“Uniform Resource Locator”) on the transponder, which URL represents a link or a reference to a designated service, resource or to the “real” data. By touching the smart poster with the transceiver, the phone automatically establishes a connection (for example, a GPRS connection) to a remote web server and loads the content/data as referenced by the URL to the transceiver.
Specific solutions sometimes make it necessary that a transponder, such as the above-mentioned RFID tag or a contactless smart card, only works at a specific position/location or in a specific, defined region. Especially a smart poster as mentioned above will only work at specific, designated locations, and must not work anywhere else. For example, if a transponder (or the corresponding smart poster) is used in a public transportation system for a check-in into this system, a user has to “touch” a smart poster to check in. Using this procedure, the user “buys” a ticket for the public transportation system.
For such an application, it is mandatory that the check-in process only works at the specific location where the smart poster has been installed by the public transport operator. If this requirement were not realized, a malicious user could remove the smart poster with the transponder for the check-in (or the transponder from the poster), then enter the public transportation system, and if he recognized a conductor, he could check in by touching the stolen smart poster or the stolen smart poster transponder. In such a situation, it must be guaranteed that the smart poster or the smart poster transponder must not work if it has been removed from its designated location, and it must be guaranteed that the check-in process is bound to the designated location.
In another example, in which it is necessary that a transponder (on, for example, a poster) only works at a specific location, the operator of said transponder, which may have stored certain information for different consumers, etc., is interested in measuring and evaluating the number and/or the frequency of touches to a certain transponder at a specific location, so that the operator can identify attractive locations for installing such transponders/posters. Here, the functionality of the smart poster tags must also be location-dependent.
A state-of-the-art solution for preventing misuse of such transponders or smart posters which must operate only at a specific, designated location is to protect the smart poster or at least the transponder against illegal theft by structural (hardware) means, for example, by providing theft protection in the form of proof glass, so that the smart poster/transponder is protected against theft and vandalism. This solution has the disadvantage that it is very costly for the operator of the transponder.
Especially when the smart poster applications are time-terminated applications, i.e. the data provided by the transponder are only valid for a certain period of time, it is required that the smart posters or the transponder are removed or that at least the transponder has to be deactivated when the smart poster application has been terminated. Structural (hardware) means for protecting the transponder/smart poster against theft has to consider this aspect, which also affects the operational costs.